Swan Dive - Jeremiah Healy (27 page)

I edged another two miles north and parked on the
beach at Nahant for two hours, watching an elderly couple and three
kids, maybe grandchildren, move at the different paces of age along
the waterline, stooping and whooping over shells and driftwood. I
started up again, skipping Swampscott and driving straight into
Marblehead. I stopped at a pay phone at 7:55 and made both my calls.
Each man was in and eager to hear from me. I sounded as drunk as I
could, giving the second one directions just opposite of those I gave
the first. I told one good luck and the other to fuck off I made a
third call, too, but when I heard the voice I wanted, I just hung up.

I spent the next hour as obviously as possible in a
neighborhood bar on a street three blocks from the harbor. I grossed
out two nice women just because I found out they were legal
secretaries. The bartender and a waiter had no trouble hustling me
out the door, though I did threaten them with immediate and costly
legal action.

I got back to the car and climbed in the driver’s
side. Reaching under the seat, I retrieved the scotch. I swished a
bit like mouthwash around the teeth and tongue and sprinkled the rest
on the sweatshirt. I tossed the bottle into an ash can and took a
couple of deep breaths. Then I walked to Felicia Arnold’s house.

She answered the door with the same "Yes?"
as she had the phone. I leered at her and told her she was beautiful.
She scowled, and I asked if that wimp Troller was there. I asked
rather loudly, and that brought Paulie-boy at a trot. He told me to
shove off I asked him if he thought he was man enough to make me.

Paulie let fly, and for the next three minutes or so,
he probably felt he was beating me to death.
 

TWENTY-FIVE
-♦-

For a while there, I thought I was going to have
trouble with the Marblehead police. Not because of Felicia or Paul,
who magnanimously told the two uniforms who responded to the scene
that they didn’t care to press charges. Not even for drunk driving,
since the cops hadn’t found me near my car. No, the problem was
that the younger officer wanted to take me to the hospital. For
observation and tests. Like a blood test, which would reveal my
suspiciously low alcohol level. Fortunately, however, the older and
cooler head prevailed, saying he’d "seen more guys beat up
than Carter had Little Liver Pills, and this guy’s just got his
pride hurt, is all."

I contritely gave the
older cop Murphy’s name and office number in Boston to call to
vouch for me. They drove me to their station and let me flop for the
night in the holding cell, complete with sea breeze. It was nearly
6:00 A.M. Sunday, with a whole new shift on, when Holt and Guinness
showed up.

* * *

"You know, Lieutenant, I’ve always wondered.
Does every department order its interrogation rooms from the same
catalog?"

Holt’s eyelids had to stretch to climb down over
his eyes, they were that bloodshot. Guinness made grumbling noises
behind a huge Styrofoam cup of coffee in the corner. He hadn’t
offered me any.

Holt said, "For a guy who got the shit kicked
out of him last night, you’re pretty fucken chipper."

"I had it coming, Lieutenant. I got drunk, then
got I angry at the wrong guy."

"’Tender at the bar here, we already talked to
him. He says you only had two drinks tops at his place."

I shook my head. "If that was all I had, I would
have been all right. But I started at like four, down in Chelsea
somewhere."

“
Chelsea."

"Right. Guinness there knows where it is, right,
Guinness? That’s as far north as you’ve ever been, you told me."
'

Guinness just stared at me.

Holt said, "Where in Chelsea?"

I described the place, then took him through the rest
of the odyssey, but vaguely, skipping around a little, then backing
and filling.

Holt let out a breath. Guinness muttered,

"Bullshit."

I said, "What’s the problem?"

Holt said, "Your friends J.J. and Terdell."

I closed my eyes and said quietly, "Not Hanna
and Vickie?"

Holt waited till I opened my eyes again. "No. J
.J. and Terdell themselves."

"Dead?"

Guinness said, "You expect us to believe this is
news to you?"

Holt silenced him with a look. "Cuddy, somebody
set something up last night. We like you for it."

"Set up what?"

"The construction project where they worked you
over. Somebody hit J.J. and Terdell there last night."

“
How could you know where it was they worked me
over?"

Guinness said, "Lieutenant. I gotta leave. I
stay, I’m gonna clock him."

Holt said, "Go."

When the door closed, I said, "Where’s
Dawkins?"

"What’s it to you?"

"Nothing. I just figured he’d be in on this
with you."

"Maybe we couldn’t reach him."

"I thought he was shadowing J.J. I thought
that’s how you all knew that J.J. had taken me to the construction
site in the first place."

Holt didn’t say anything.

I said, "Well, it’s probably just Saturday
night. Dawkins, I mean. You know, him having the weekend off and
all."

After a few seconds, Holt said, "You gonna stick
to this pub-crawling story?"

"It’s no story, Lieutenant."

"I already got your gun, Cuddy, remember? Now
I’m going after your investigator’s license."

"On what ground? You know I didn’t kill Marsh
or Teri Angel. You’re also gonna find out that I spent the
afternoon intoxicating myself and the evening embarrassing myself. So
now two pieces of shit turn up dead in some dirt pile that’s not
even in your jurisdiction. If I remember right, back from when we
were discussing protection for Hanna and Vickie, you’re real
concerned about the limits of your jurisdiction."

Holt put both of his hands flat on the table and
heaved himself up from the chair. "You get away with this, it’s
only gonna be because you didn’t do it in Boston, get me?"

"Can I get out of here, at least?"

Holt said, "If the Marblehead cops don’t want
you, I sure as hell don’t."

He opened the door and turned back to me. "You
look like shit. I hope you’re gonna clean up before the wake."

"Thanks, Lieutenant, but I’m afraid they’re
going to have to send J.J. and Terdell to the great beyond without
me."

Holt looked at me kind of funny, then said, "You
don’t know, do you?"

"Know what?"

He gave me a smile, a
heartless, hard smile. “Your friend, Christides the lawyer. He got
up yesterday morning and ate his gun for breakfast."

* * *

I knocked on the front door of the house instead of
the garage. Fotis answered. He didn’t want to let me in, especially
the way I looked. I made him understand that I thought Eleni would
want to talk with me. He told me to wait and closed the door. He came
back a minute later and told me to come in.

She was in the kitchen, sipping coffee, both hands
around the cup. When she saw my condition, the tic in her eye cranked
into high gear. Putting down the cup, she said something quickly to
her cousin in Greek, and he left us.

"John, my God, your face and—"

"I’m all right, Eleni. Just a little light."

She seemed to relax. "You heard."

"The police told me. Eleni, I'm so sorry . . ."

She dismissed that tack with a flick of her hand.
"No, John, you do not be sorry. What happen here had to happen."

"I don’t understand."

"He told me. After you leave Friday night. He
finally come to me and told me. About the Marsh animal, about the
drugs, about the . . . whore."

"Eleni, Chris was—"

“
No! I do not want to talk about what he was. You I
know, you a good man to help Hanna and the child, but that Marsh, he
was a bad man. I could tell the first time I see him, and I tell you
when I see you. But Chris does not kill Marsh because of what Marsh
did, because of the pig he was. No, Chris kills Marsh because he was
scared."

"I think you’re being too hard on yourself.
And on him. Chris was a good man."

"A good man does not visit the whores! I was a
wife to Chris as long as I could. The . . . sickness takes me, John.
Chris know what I know, that the days, there are not so many left.
Still, he goes to the whore, like all the men in Greece I leave to
come here."

"Eleni—"

"Chris was weak! Too weak to help the woman and
child, too weak to be faithful to his wife, too weak even to do the
right thing."

"What do you mean?"

“
After you leave, and he tell me all the things, he
lie awake, he cannot sleep, he say he will never sleep again. He say
he will go crazy when the other lawyers find out what he did and take
away his practice. He say he will go crazy in prison. He see the
right thing, in front of him, and still he is too weak."

"I don’t follow you."

"The suicide, John. The suicide, the right
thing, and he too weak even to do that. He so weak, in the end I have
to help him."

I just stared down at her.

She said, "You a man with honor, John. You know
what I mean."

God help me, I was afraid I did.
 

TWENTY-SIX
-♦-

When you’ve been around death too much, I think you
try hard to watch for encouraging signs of life. As I came over the
Tobin Bridge, a dozen pleasure boats were making their way through
the locks on the Charles River and out to the harbor. Winding along
Storrow Drive, I paralleled couples strolling, kids playing, joggers
striding. Even a few wind-skaters sailed by, twisting and dodging
around the slower walkers and runners.

The day was brightening as much as I’d let it when
I reached the condo’s parking space. Along the street, an
attractive woman was loading a picnic cooler into her hatchback,
while a man holding his child’s hand was stopped by a pair of nuns,
traditionally hooded and graciously accepting the money he dropped
into their woven basket. That struck the only jarring note; you’d
think the church would have gotten its share at Mass in the morning.

I started walking around the building, but not fast
enough. I could hear the nuns coming up behind me as I got to my
front steps. One said, “Sir?"

I turned around and looked from the basket into
Salome’s not quite angelic face. Nino glared at me from under the
other hood, a .357 magnum with a three-inch barrel pointing out from
where rosary ' beads should dangle.

Nino said, "Inside.
Now."

* * *

"You give me a reason."

I said, "To shoot or not to shoot?"

Nino didn’t answer. He stood in the center of my
living room, headdress on the table but gun in his hand. His eyes
could have pinned me to the couch. I heard Salome at the
refrigerator. She poked her head around the comer of the kitchen
doorway, saying, "All you got is this Killian’s shit?"

“
Sorry."

She opened two, brought one in for Nino. She took a
sip and a chair. Nino held the bottle by the neck and I downed half
of it.

He wiped his mouth and said, "I wanna hear just
what the fuck you think you doing, man."

"You might want to sit down. It’s going to
take a while."

"Maybe you don’t got a while. Talk."

I brought him up to date, quickly, since he already
knew most of it.

"So Marsh use my Angel to set up the Greek
lawyer."

"That’s right."

Salome said, "Fucken shithead."

"And you can’t get J.J. to take the heat off
the wife and kid."

"Uh-huh."

His voice rose. "So you fucken call me, and then
call J.J., and tell both of us that his snow in one of those fucken
pipes at the project."

"Yes."

"You motherfucken cocksucker! You set me up to
get wasted, man."

"Not the way it worked 0ut."

"Worked out? I start in that tunnel at the end
you and me came out, just like you tell me to, and fucken Terdell, he
coming from the other side, where him and J.J. have you before I save
you cojones. I’m coming up on meeting him somewhere in the middle,
and if it ain’t for the fucken stink rolling ahead of him maybe
five yards he waste me."

"I can’t believe it was that close."

Nino slung the beer bottle at me in a whippy,
underhanded way that made it carom off my collar-bone and smash
against the wall over my head, the red liquid staining as it ran down
and along the woodwork. I rubbed the bone and didn’t say anything
about my security deposit.

"I gotta dive down when Terdell see me. He
already have out this cannon, he start yelling my name. ‘Nino, you
fucken little shit, you was the one, you was the one,' and like that.
Well, he get the two shots off, I don’t even get the chance to say
nothing, if I did I couIdn’t hear it ’cause the fucken noise from
the shots like to break my ears open. Then J.J. coming up behind him,
at the next junction in the tunnel. J.J. start spraying this Uzi all
the fuck over, and maybe three slugs hit Terdell in the back. Fuck,
Terdell not there, taking up so much of the tunnel, some of J.J.’s
shots find me, you know it? So I low crawl to Terdell to get his
piece, and somehow he stinking worse than when he was alive, musta
had ten pounds of soul food shit coming out his ass when the muscles
let go. J.J. not too good with the Uzi in real life, probably bought
it and took it out somewheres, learn how to shoot it but never seen
no real combat with it, don’t conserve his ammo."